


Sweetest in the Gale

by emungere



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-20
Updated: 2007-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-26 10:22:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2648531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emungere/pseuds/emungere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Future fic. River gets better, but things can never be the way they were.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sweetest in the Gale

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to **odalisques** for her usual brilliance in betaing and to **justblue0162** for making me clarify the cheese.

I.

River presses her hands over her ears, but she can't shut out the gunfire. Simon is holding her tightly, but Simon can't keep her safe. He never could.

The shots are inside her head, bouncing from side to side and tearing through her brain. They buzz like mosquitoes, and they hurt, and she can't get them out, needs to get them _out_ , but she can't move. Simon told her not to move. He can't keep her safe, but she has to let him try.

He is speaking now, and the combustion of each bullet weaves through his voice in angry punctuation.

"We shouldn't even be here, Mal! What are we doing here? You said--"

"A year! I said a year, and it ain't been that yet."

"We have enough money. No one's looking for River any more, or for me. We could--"

"I'm kind of in the middle of a firefight here, Simon, in case you missed that. You think we could save this for later?"

River relaxes a little. Nothing is too bad if Mal and Simon are yelling at each other. Their serious fights are all meteor-ice and vacuum-silence. She tucks her head under Simon's chin and holds onto him.

It's easier to ignore the gunshots with the argument going on over her head. A year, Mal said. She does remember that, or at least Simon remembers it. He remembers the gentle blur of Christmas lights through half closed eyes and Mal's arms around him and promises of a life where he doesn't have to sew up bullet holes quite so often.

Mal remembers standing in the doorway of the bridge, seeing Zoe on Wash's lap. Wash's hand is pressed to her stomach, trying to feel their unborn child. They are outlined by the dim glow of the instrument panel, light slipping around the bulge of Zoe's body like the pre-light of dawn over the horizon.

A year from Christmas.

She just stops herself from asking what month this is. The question probably wouldn't be appreciated right now.

II.

The door stands closed in front of them. Its vertical wooden planks were once painted red--

\--the color of blood--The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6  
seconds given adequate vacuuming systems--Kaylee on the operating table in times unborn--trail of Mal's blood like breadcrumbs--

River, standing at the back of the group, shakes her head.

Once, the door was painted red. Barn-red. Because it's a barn. Not the color of blood. And anyway, it's not even barn-red any more. Nuala is a bright new sun, and she's been beating down on this structure for almost as long as River's been alive.

She can remember Jei Keller's hope as he was building it, a new life for his family. She can remember Jei's children swinging from the rafters on the rope used to haul hay up to the hay loft. She can remember little Matty who got kicked by one of the horses and there was so much blood--

But these are not her memories. And the doors are more brown now than red, and that only in places. Mostly, the seasonal winds have stripped away the paint, and the bare wood is silvery-grey.

She catches Simon looking back at her and smiles brightly at him. He frowns in response, but doesn't press to know what's wrong.

Mal hauls the door open. "Well? What do you think?"

River steps toward the darkness and brushes against Zoe as she does. The sunlight creeping across the floor of the barn pulls her in, and time overlaps in queer conjunction. Two Zoes speak the same words.

"You paid money for this, sir? On purpose?"

Then Zoe's hand is heavy on her shoulder, and she knows that this is now. She hears Mal's chuckle and looks over to see him standing tall against the horizon, Simon held close against his chest, the setting sun painting both their faces red, the gold bands on their ring fingers melting into one--

The sun isn't setting, she tells herself patiently. She tries to be patient with herself, if only because it works better than getting upset.

The sun is just low enough to slant into this empty hulk of a barn that is the only building on the property Mal has just purchased. Simon is leaning back against Mal, and his frown is gone. It causes her no pain to be so easily forgotten. It means she's getting better. He doesn't worry so much because he doesn't have to.

"Think you know me well enough by now to know I'm not a man likely to part with money by accident," Mal says.

"Can we go _in_ yet?" The voice is high, each word carefully articulated. Clara's just learning to speak, but she seems determined to get it right the first time, and all at once.

Wash crouches down beside her. "Not yet, sunshine. Mommy and Uncle Mal are having a moment," he says in a stage whisper.

"Oh," she says in the same tone. She nods solemnly and stays quiet for about five seconds. "Are they almost done?"

"We're quite done," Zoe says. "And unless there's a chair in there, I'm heading back to the ship."

The second baby is due any day now. It will be a boy, and his name will be Tom, after Wash's father. When Zoe was pregnant with Clara, River blurted out the baby's name and sex at the dinner table one night. She's managed not to this time, so she and Simon are the only ones who know it will be a boy, and even Simon doesn't know his name. Wash thinks about it sometimes, but he also thinks it might be nice to name it after Mal if it's a boy. He doesn't like the thought much, but he has it anyway. River doesn't understand why Zoe and Wash don't want to know what even Simon could tell them, but she will do her best to make sure they don't find out because of her.

"There's a chair," Mal says. "Go on in. You got to get the full effect."

So they all troop in, Clara running full tilt ahead until Kaylee and Helen catch her hands and swing her up into the air. Clara laughs, and the sound echoes eerily. Helen picks her up and hushes her. Clara could almost be Helen and Jayne's child instead of Wash and Zoe's. Her hair and eyes match Helen's almost exactly, and Helen mothers her as she mothers everyone.

Mal hits a switch, and a few pale lights come on, accompanied by a dim hum.

"I said I'd find a place by Christmas, and I meant it," Mal says quietly. "House ain't built yet. But we've spent Christmas worse places."

A tree stands in a corner. It isn't decorated, but there is a pile of presents under it. The floor has been swept clean. The dust and cobwebs that River can still see are only faded ghosts. It smells of new hay and evergreen and wood polish, and also of roast turkey. Book, the only one of them absent from the group outside, stands beside a long table piled with food. There are eleven chairs set around it.

Herself, Simon and Mal, Jayne and Helen, Book, Inara and Kaylee, Zoe and Wash and Clara. Her family. They have managed to surprise her once again. She didn't see this coming.

III.

"You _can't_ go, it's Christmas, you can't be gone for Christmas, you're not allowed!" Clara crosses her arms and gives, for a four-year-old, a very good imitation of Zoe's death glare.

"Trade needs to happen now. Cows are ready, buyer's ready--"

"I don't care about the stupid cows!" Clara sets her jaw. "It'll scar Tommy for life."

River hears Mal trying not to laugh as he gets the grown-up version of Zoe's death glare right from the source. It was probably Mal she got that phrase from. Mal's been using it a lot lately, mostly to keep Jayne from telling Clara some of his more interesting when-I-was-a-big-bad-mercenary stories.

"We're just having Christmas a little late this year, sunshine," Wash says. "So we can all be together."

"We can all be together if you just don't _go_." Clara looks up at her father with huge blue eyes and then grabs hold of his leg. "You can't go! I won't let you!"

Wash looks helplessly at Zoe, who kneels down to look Clara in the face.

"We're going. You're staying. We'll have Christmas and presents and such when we get back. That's the way it is."

Clara sags and lets go of her father's leg. "I don't want you to. I want you to stay. What if..."

Wash kneels down and wraps her in his arms. "What if what, sunshine?"

"What if something happens? Like with Uncle Jayne?"

Jayne's past turned up last year and shot him in the leg. The bullet cracked his hip, and he spent two months with a cane.

River shuts her eyes. She's supposed to see things like that coming. She would have, if she'd looked. She didn't want to look. When Jayne and Mal went away on that trip, she couldn't bear the thought that anything might happen, and she just didn't look, and it was her fault.

That will never happen again.

She looks now. The door in her head unfolds like origami. The edges catch at her mind and sting like paper cuts and things start to bleed through.

She sees colors and she hears sounds. Things sweep into a funnel around her, picking up speed and violence. She fights to pick out the one thread she needs. Her fingers catch and pull and--

Clara runs into her mother's waiting arms as Zoe and Wash walk down Serenity's ramp under a clear blue sky--

\--and River opens her eyes. "It will be all right," she says. "Nothing bad will happen, Clara."

Zoe and Wash stare at her, wariness in their eyes for just a moment before they remember not to be afraid. Behind her, Mal has moved closer and lays a steadying hand on her shoulder. Mal has never been afraid of what she can do. She leans back against him.

Clara studies her and then stands abruptly. "Okay. We can have Christmas late. But I'm not waiting to open my presents."

"Oh yes, you are, young lady," Mal says. "Everyone's waiting till your folks get back. You'll make your mama cry if you don't."

The idea of Zoe crying is so patently ridiculous to Clara that it sets her laughing, and Wash picks her up and flips her upside down to tickle her, and her laughter turns to shrieks. When he sets her down again a few seconds later, she is grinning.

"Okay?" Zoe asks.

"If Aunt River says it's okay, then it must be," Clara says. "Aunt Helen's making cookies. Can I go help?"

"Sure, kiddo. Run along." Clara goes, and Wash turns to River. "Thanks," he says.

She shrugs and tries to smile. It's what she does now. This is her job.

It's not what she gets paid for--she gets paid for making cheese, a job she likes more than she thought she would. When Mal made the suggestion, it was only a way for her to pull her own weight on the ranch, but it's quiet and cool and damp in the cheese shed. She turns the rounds every day, and there are so many that she actually has calluses from where the sides of her hands rub against the wooden shelves.

The repetition is good for her. It wears grooves of normality into her life that her mind can follow. Once patterns are established, it takes a conscious effort to break away from them these days.

That is a relief, but it makes her real job harder. It hurts now when she lets herself get caught up in the hurricane of her...gift. But that doesn't matter. She is their guardian, and she will watch over them.

Zoe and Wash follow Clara out of the room, and River is left alone with Mal. He stoops to kiss the top of her head. "You okay?"

She shrugs again. "Don't tell Simon. Okay?"

"Reckon he'll hear about it one way or another."

"Maybe. Just don't tell him."

"Okay. I won't tell him."

Mal is humoring her, but she doesn't mind. He's the only one who really doesn't object to her abilities. She still doesn't understand why exactly, but he doesn't.

"Merry almost-Christmas, mei mei. Let's go get some of those cookies."

IV.

River sits on the porch and watches the snow fall. Each flake is a rarity on this warm world, something to be cherished. Unique as a child. White Christmas this year.

She closes her eyes and holds her coffee mug close to her face so she can feel the steam. The heat is a contrast to the crisp cold of the air. Warm face, warm hands. Feet warm in heavy boots. Knees cold where they are pressed tight against her pants, cold also on the back of her neck where her new haircut has bared the skin.

Grounded in routine and physical sensation, she lets her mind go. It expands like the tent Wash got Tom for his eighth birthday. The barest effort and the future assembles itself around her, playing out in well mannered progression from the current moment.

The mug falls from her hands. She is two steps off the porch before it hits the ground.

The vision inserts itself into every patch of ground cleared by her footprints in the snow. If she looked back, she would see a trail of fear stretching out behind her.

The river is just around the corner of the house and behind the twin pear trees that arch to the sky. Under the pear trees, just as she saw/is seeing, Tom stands with one foot on the ice.

"Tom! Wait!"

He takes another steps and laughs over his shoulder. "Aunt River! Look! I can skate." His voice is high and wavering with bravado. He knows he isn't supposed to do this.

She runs, but she will be too late. The thin patch is so near, and the current so strong just underneath, narrowed and strengthened by the lid of ice.

Events moving like the current, bearing her along, the darkness she would have been able to prevent if she'd only looked a few seconds earlier, all her fault, and why is it only the bad things she sees, why is it always--

Some things she doesn't foresee.

Like the young man in faded overalls on the other side of the water.

"Hey, you! Stop right there!" he bellows, loudly enough that Tom stops out of sheer surprise.

That's all the time River needs to get close enough to catch his arm and pull him back.

"Hey," he starts. "I was going to--"

"Hush." She holds him close for just a second and then turns him to face the ice.

She points for him to watch and tosses a rock gently onto the ice he was about to cross. It cracks the ice and vanishes. The edges of the ice are thin enough that they ripple in the current.

Tom looks at her with wide eyes. "Sorry."

"It's okay. You know now. Go back in the house."

"Are you gonna tell Mom?"

"No. You won't do it again, right?"

He shakes his head rapidly.

"All right. Just go in and get some breakfast."

He runs toward the house, and River straightens up. The young man in overalls is still standing across the water. He is watching her.

Messy, light brown hair, large frame, bare ankles sticking out of too-short pants. He is barefoot in the snow. Crazier than I am, River thinks. She nods to him. He nods back and turns around. He walks into the empty field and doesn't look back.

She watches him go until she feels snow building up inside her collar and melting down the back of her neck. She walks slowly back to the house and finds Tom cleaning up her broken mug. She shoos him inside with a smile and finishes the job herself.

She takes the pieces into the kitchen and throws them away. Tom is sitting at the kitchen table. Helen is serving him bacon and eggs, and she gestures River to sit as well.

"You look pale, honey. Is everything okay?"

River doesn't even look at Tom as she answers. Like Jayne, Helen is smarter than most people take her for, but River is good at keeping secrets.

"Thin ice on the river," she says quietly. "I could have fallen right through."

***

Every surface in the house has been polished. Things gleam that haven't gleamed since the place was built. River leans over the edge of her chair and looks down. She can actually see her reflection in the floor.

Candle light burnishes wood and walls and faces. River sits out every dance. Any of them would dance with her--but they look so much happier dancing together, paired off with a tangible sense of belonging.

So she watches and listens to the music and doesn't dance. She doesn't need to. That isn't her role in this life she's living. If she was one of the dancers, she might slip, and she can't slip. When she slips, people get hurt. She has to watch, all the time, all time...

She feels her mind twisting into knots and stops; breathes until she is as smooth as the reflective floor.

Two booted feet appear in front of her own.

"Hi."

She looks up. It is the boy with the overalls from this morning. He's still wearing them. His face is red with cold or drink. Cold, she thinks, from the way he's standing, one arm bent across his chest, hand rubbing slowly along it.

She doesn't know what he wants from her. She doesn't want to know.

"The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds, given adequate vacuuming systems." A little dose of crazy is always good for stopping conversations short.

He puts his hands in his pockets and rocks on his feet.

"So what's adequate? I guess you're not talking about what my mama used to clean the floors."

She blinks at him. That's not the way the conversation is supposed to go.

"You're not dancing," he says before she can answer. "How come?"

"I... I don't dance."

"Sure you do. I've seen you, in the mornings, out by the pear trees."

"You were spying on me?"

"Nah. Just watching."

Just watching. That's why he was there to save Tom this morning. He wanted to watch her dance.

That's what she does after her coffee, after she looks over the day ahead, before she goes to work at the job Mal pays her for. It is her time. And she didn't see him there. She didn't see him coming.

He holds out his hand. "Dance with me? I like the way you dance."

She takes his hand, or he takes hers--larger than hers by far, she feels engulfed by just that grip, just that contact. They swing onto the dance floor, and his feet are as light as her own. She watches the approving smiles on the faces over his shoulder. Her family, their neighbors, all so happy she's joined them.

She watches Mal back Simon into a dark corner and steal kiss after kiss. She watches Kaylee smiling at her like the sun over Inara's shoulder as they pass by so close. She watches Jayne nudge Zoe sharply in the ribs and point her out. Zoe meets her eyes and almost smiles. Nods to her.

Joining this dance isn't as hard as she always thought it would be.


End file.
